Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Wallace2/publications is this guy's images or articles free to use, or are they under copyright? There's no article for a picture of bacteria that he has, only a listing here on the organisms with least neurons article, with it at 200. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolven1 (talk • contribs) 21:13, 22 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Might be useful? Anybody knows how to do that?--SvenAERTS (talk) 13:31, 1 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

The article states, under "Public Domain", "A work which is not copyrighted is in the public domain, and may be freely copied by anyone", but later on it says, "Seeing something on the Internet without a copyright notice does not mean that it is in the public domain". This needs to be clarified. Thinker78 (talk) 16:47, 6 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

It is perfectly clear: if something is not copyrighted it is in the public domain, but simply not having a copyright notice displayed is not enough to prove something is in the public domain as nowadays copyright is assumed by default even if one does not write ™, ®, © or "All rights reserved" or something like that. Veverve (talk) 10:57, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

I find the first line of this "short version" FAQ very confusing and hard to logically unwind.

The absence of a copyright notice does not mean that a work may be freely used.

It starts with a negative of a complex situation, so I cannot imagine how a newbie makes sense of this. Instead, I'd propose something much more of a tight narrative. This is an explanation I gave recently for a virtual edit-a-thon participant which might be useful as a new starting point:

Copyright is an intellectual property right that protects a creator's particular expression of an idea. By default, any text or image content on the web or in print should be assumed to be under a traditional form of copyright and must not be copy and pasted into Wikipedia. One can only copy and paste content if that person knows in the affirmative that it is is free - either it is public domain (a very specific legal term pertaining to the age of the content or the creator's release terms) or available under a free license (typically Creative Commons, see details below). It is atypical and uncommon for text to be copy/pasted into Wikipedia in this manner. However, the facts, information, or knowledge within a copyrighted text are not protected. So that content can be restated or rewritten and is the basis for the vast majority of Wikipedia writing activities.

The rest of the details (the chart, fair use, etc) can be an elaboration on this. Feedback welcome. -- Fuzheado | Talk 10:38, 18 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

I bought a postcard xx years ago. I own the card and the photo represented on the card. May I use that image and upload it to WikiMedia for use in an article? Im asking as I didn't see any reference to purchased items in the article.Farawayman (talk) 13:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I own the card and the photo represented on the card: you do not own the rights. You did not take the picture or drew the painting on this postcard. Thus, you cannot upload it, unless on fair use; but uploading it under fair use would require discerning whether it is worth uploading or not, and in this case it does not seem to be not worth it. Veverve (talk) 10:52, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

According to Creative Commons, “There is no compatibility mechanism in CC BY-SA 1.0. You must use version 1.0 for your contributions to adaptations of material under BY-SA 1.0. ” source. See also talk, talk. Proeksad (talk) 15:23, 21 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Why does this have About.com as a source (link), while About.com URLs are blacklisted from Wikipedia? Veverve (talk) 10:37, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

I have now made a request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist for this specific URL. Veverve (talk) 10:48, 21 June 2023 (UTC)Reply